All artists
Mamie Smith
1891–1946
Vaudeville singer whose 1920 “Crazy Blues” was the first blues hit recorded by a Black artist — the record that convinced labels a Black audience existed.
was a vaudeville and cabaret performer when, in 1920, she recorded Perry Bradford’s “Crazy Blues” for OKeh. It sold in huge numbers, largely to Black buyers, and showed the labels that African American customers were a market they had ignored. The industry answered with a segregated catalog it called “” — 78s by Black musicians, sold as a category apart — the commercial door through which the country and city blues of the following decades walked. She continued to perform and appear in films through the 1940s.
Songs on the site
In context
Elsewhere
Where Mamie Smith worked
Open in full mapplaces